


Meeting of the Minds

by MelyndaR



Series: Sufficiency Trilogy [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, F/M, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23565898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: “My wife doesn’t realize yet,” Tuvok said suddenly, watching Kathryn carefully. Almost warily.“Doesn’t realize what?”His eyebrows rose as he replied simply, “That she loves you.”
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway & Tuvok (Star Trek), Kathryn Janeway/Mark Johnson, Kathryn Janeway/T'Pel (Stark Trek)/Tuvok (Star Trek), T'Pel/Tuvok (Star Trek)
Series: Sufficiency Trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664521
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	1. Part One: Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I've decided that the "anthem" to this series - like "I Lived" is to the Don't Fear the Fall series - is "Photograph" by Ed Sheeran.  
> Also for the record, everything in this story very much takes place before anything in the Don't Fear the Fall series, and although it all happens in the same universe, you can ignore this story as canon to the Don't Fear the Fall series (at least for now) if you'd like.

_ 2365: _

“I am aware I’ve known of her for years, and met her a few times, at that, but it’s not the same as what I’m being ordered to do now. She’s reckless, irresponsible, and thinks far too much with her emotions – and thinks far too much of herself for that matter,” Tuvok announced, standing on a cliff near his home, watching the sunset with his wife at his side. 

He wasn’t complaining precisely, no more than he was… irritated with the situation. He couldn’t feel such a trivial thing as irritation, after all. 

Yet he was displeased in any case as he added, “And even after today, after I – only the chief tactical officer – felt the need to reprimand the woman in command because she doesn’t know Star Fleet’s own tactical protocols, they still want me to accompany her. To…” he nearly rolled his eyes. “Be her ‘right-hand man.’”

“It sounds like this Captain Janeway might need a little… behind-the-scenes guidance,” T’Pel said, hooking one arm through her husband’s as she used her other hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “And that is something you’re known to be good at, my husband.”

He eyed her sideways for a moment before turning back to the sunset. “Your flattery is not so soothing as you would like it to be.”

“At least I am trying to soothe you,” T’Pel pointed out. “You’re letting the very idea of working with this woman again bother you, and you’re not yet trying to stop it.”

Tuvok sighed, taking the slight reprimand in her tone in stride. “You’re right, I know.”

“And what of Captain Janeway?” T’Pel asked. “Was she at least receptive to your reprimand? Does she seem teachable?”

“I… am unsure as of yet. And even if she is, I doubt very much that she will like me for a while. I will admit I gave her _quite_ the…”

“Speech?” T’Pel suggested.

“That’s one way of putting it, yes,” he agreed, as the sun finally slipped behind the horizon.

“Well,” T’Pel leaned into him for a moment, tugging him gently away from the precipice. “We’ll get back to soothing you in a while; for now, you have children that need a bit of soothing for themselves before they go to bed, and their father goes away for a while once again.”

“They’re proper Vulcan children,” Tuvok pointed out as he walked with her. “They don’t really worry for me, so they don’t need soothing.”

T’Pel glanced downwards, her shoulders stooping just enough in the darkness for Tuvok to wince internally as he realized too late that he’d misspoken. “They are and they’re not,” T’Pel replied quietly. “And so, forgive me, but they do.”

Unsure what to say to soothe _her_ now, Tuvok said nothing for a moment rather than misspeak a second time. When the silence between them became weighty, he pointed out, “I’ll only be gone a week; it shouldn’t be difficult for any of us.”

“I know,” T’Pel agreed. “If the mission were any longer, it sounds like it might be bad for your new partner.”

“Don’t refer to Captain Janeway like that;” Tuvok was quick to object. “You don’t know that that’s where this is going.”

T’Pel gave him a _look_ then, her eyes shining with something akin to mischief in the darkness, and now when Tuvok bit his tongue it was so as not to give her a chance to prove him wrong.

* * *

T’Pel’s instincts had proven correct, as was often the case, though she was merciful to her husband, and didn’t precisely point it out. She didn’t need to, when they both knew that he knew she’d been correct.

Over the next few months, Tuvok and Captain Kathryn Janeway travelled on a number of small missions together. It was a learning curve for Tuvok as much as it was for Captain Janeway, T’Pel observed privately, judging solely upon the stories that he told her, and the changing tones in which he told them. They were not friends, and she wasn’t someone he particularly wanted to meet his family – she was too unpredictable for them, he kept insisting. Nevertheless, T’Pel was intrigued, and after six months of listening to various stories about Kathryn Janeway and how she and Tuvok kept going two steps forward, one step back in learning to work together, T’Pel managed to change his mind.

Six months, three weeks, and four days after meeting Tuvok, Kathryn Janeway travelled to planet Vulcan to meet T’Pel.

_ She was short,  _ was T’Pel’s first thought when Tuvok ushered the human into their home. Somehow, the woman in her husband’s stories had morphed into an Amazonian in T’Pel’s mind with wild flame-colored curls and a mouth that could spew fire as well. This smaller woman with a polite smile and hair only one shade brighter than strawberry blonde was a strange sort of shock that T’Pel desperately hoped didn’t show on her face.

“Welcome,” T’Pel said, raising her hand in a typical Vulcan greeting. “I am T’Pel, Tuvok’s wife.”

“Thank you,” Captain Janeway replied with an embarrassed little smile as she admitted, “I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway, and… I would return your greeting, but I…” she shrugged. “I can’t. I don’t know why; my fingers just won’t do it.”

“Ah, well,” T’Pel said dismissively, trying to ignore the fact that she could _feel_ her youngest two children exchanging glances behind her back. “We all have our… quirks.”

Captain Janeway smiled gratefully at her. “Indeed, we do. But,” here she looked behind T’Pel to the quartet of children standing in a tidy line behind her and smiled mischievously. “It is a little funny for a star ship captain to be unable to do such a simple thing, isn’t it?”

Asil nodded, and Assan even _smiled_ ever so slightly at the captain. Captain Janeway looked over her shoulder at Tuvok, saying, “What charming children you have, lieutenant.”

“Thank you,” Tuvok replied with an accepting, and appropriately grave, nod.

All of them behaving as if it wasn’t at all strange for a Vulcan child of Assan’s age to still be smiling at strangers. 

“Yes,” T’Pel agreed when Captain Janeway met her gaze again, a stirring beginning in her breastbone that she didn’t want to examine. “Thank you.”

Captain Janeway smiled at her, and even without looking towards Tuvok, T’Pel could tell that the two women were already getting along far more easily than the two that worked together were. 

_ Maybe, then,  _ T’Pel considered to herself, _that meant she could endeavor to be useful to them here, to help the two of them… see eye to eye a little easier. As long as they would give her a chance to do so._


	2. Chapter 2

“I like her,” T’Pel announced, buttoning up her gown that night.

“Captain Janeway is not as intolerable as I’d first thought,” Tuvok allowed, lying down in bed.

“And the children clearly enjoyed her company.” Tuvok hummed in agreement, but said nothing, and into that ensuing silence, T’Pel declared, “I told her she was welcome to return to Vulcan whenever she wished.”

“Of course she is; there’s a whole planet to explore if she has the constitution for it.”

“As our guest, Tuvok, to our home,” T’Pel expounded upon what she was certain he already understood and was just choosing to skirt.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“Because your family likes her, and she likes your family, and I think that perhaps if you two can get to know one another in a more relaxed setting it will help how you’re able to relate to one another at work.”

“Like it or not, she’s my commanding officer, and I do not need to become her friend.”

T’Pel was unsure if she was the one who was supposed to dislike his statement, or if Tuvok himself did, but it didn’t truly matter. She climbed into bed beside him, curling close with her head on his chest as she said, “But it would help you to try. Besides, I want you to.”

He was glaring at the top of her head, she could feel it, and she was pleased with herself as she lay in his arms, thinking how good of a thing it was that he had long ago learned how to tolerate her “little whims” as he was prone to calling them as he said, “Then, for you alone, I will try.”

“Thank you. That is all I ask.”

* * *

Over time, T’Pel was gratified to observe that she was right. When they weren’t working together, Tuvok and Captain Janeway appeared to function much better around one another. To the point that Tuvok began to include himself in the list of people who enjoyed Captain Janeway’s increasing presence in their home. To the point that, whenever the children weren’t around, Tuvok and T’Pel dropped her more formal title to call her “Kathryn,” as the friend that she was, and not a superior officer in Star Fleet. To the point that the family began to take her out into their blistering town when she and Tuvok’s days off coincided, making good use of Tuvok’s once-dry suggestion that she get to know their home planet.

Over time, she came to care for Kathryn Janeway as easily as she breathed, and the depths of her feelings began to worry her. She was a Vulcan woman. She shouldn’t have been able to feel love as the humans did, and she was a married woman, besides. There was no place for genuine feelings of _any_ nature in her relationship with Kathryn.

…And yet, there they were.

Kathryn was spending a weekend on Vulcan with the family – in fact, sleeping in the guest room on the other side of Tuvok and T’Pel’s bedroom wall – when T’Pel caved and spoke to Tuvok of the thought that she could no longer ignore.

“I could tell her.” The words were only a whisper as she lay in bed, and she studied her hands, not her husband, as she said them.

Tuvok looked up from the PADD he’d been reading at his desk, turning to T’Pel instead. “Tell who what?”

“Tell Kathryn… what I am.” T’Pel looked at Tuvok then, watched his thoughts change behind his eyes as he attempted to sort out what she was saying. “I doubt she would care.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Tuvok allowed before continuing carefully, “But if she would not care, then what is the point of telling her at all? I worry for the effect it could have on our children’s lives in a town as small as ours.”

T’Pel fought against wilting at what she knew to be perfectly logical resistance to the idea. “I mean to tell _Kathryn_ , not the whole town.”

“But if it gets out, it could affect the arrangements we’ve made for the children, the very way they – we all – are viewed here. You know that I’m right. I’m sorry, but I must continue to advise against telling anyone.”

He tried to reach for her hand across the space between them, a sort of placation he thought she might need even when he didn’t understand it, and in an unusual flash of anger towards him, she curled her hand into her chest rather than let him touch her. He didn’t want to know what she was feeling right now, not really.

“T’Pel,” he said softly, more out of consideration for their guest than any tenderness; she’d long ago made peace with the fact that was just the way he was. Setting aside his PADD, he laid down in bed beside her, turning towards her in as much of an invitation as she was likely to get.

“The children know what I am,” she reminded him, a feeble counter argument as she did not move nearer to him.

“Only because—” she saw him reconsider what he’d been about to say, rephrase it in his mind before he said it to her. “They are as you are, and to not understand that would confuse them in their own minds. It’s risky enough for them to know; we’ve gone our whole marriage without telling anyone else – not even my family – and it is not worth changing our… policy now. Think of the children, my wife.”

“ _Kathryn_ would think of the children,” T’Pel pointed out, cringing at the sharpness in her own tone before she smoothed it out with purposeful force of will. “And she would not tell, and she would not care.”

“Then it does not matter, and if it does not matter, then she does not need to know,” Tuvok countered again, and there was a flat, painful finality to his tone. “I am sorry if it wounds you, but we both know mine is the logical, safest conclusion to come to.” Finally, he understood what she’d really began to want him to do as he rolled over in the bed, turning his back to her before he began to fall asleep.

Releasing a shaky sigh, T’Pel untangled herself from the bedcovers, and, her mind still whirling restlessly, went to meditate. She understood Tuvok’s was the logical thought process, but he was also right in that it hurt her.


	3. Chapter 3

Against all logical thought and her husband’s wishes, T’Pel told Kathryn her story anyway, a secret worn like a shroud and shared in the earliest hour of the morning when it was only the two of them in the kitchen. 

As T’Pel had expected, Kathryn didn’t care at all, but she didn’t understand precisely what it meant on this corner of Vulcan, either. Before she quite knew what she was doing, T’Pel was baring… parts of herself that she’d long set aside, parts of herself that she had no business considering as a proper Vulcan. Kathryn took her hand, looking at her with such a well of sympathy, and T’Pel felt that sympathy through her touch as Kathryn took T’Pel’s pain almost as her own.

T’Pel felt some physically painful version of heartsick as she continued to talk, explaining to Kathryn that she was not the mate that Tuvok had gone his whole life getting to know; she was someone he had stumbled upon in her small town while travelling, while his first pon farr was upon him. He had been sick with the blood fever by then, and she had been without real prospects in a town where she’d grown up an outcast, and though she’d done her best to explain to him what she was, she wasn’t sure it ever would’ve mattered. They were the best each other had, and so they had mated… and been fortunate enough to half-stumble into a peaceful, well-suited marriage. 

Still, T’Pel admitted, there were days when both she and Tuvok knew that she overwhelmed or baffled him, no matter how much he was utterly devoted to her. That’s what he was: devoted to her, and that was sufficient. That was more than enough, more than she’d anticipated getting from a mate when she was a child. 

He was devoted, and she loved him, and most of the time she was perfectly content in her marriage, but sometimes, like the previous night, she saw the differences in their thought processes –because of the useless, _un-Vulcan_ things in her mind – and she struggled to reconcile it all. 

“I don’t mean to complain,” T’Pel said honestly at the end of her horrid speech. Her bewilderment flickered across her face, a rare display of emotions that showed just how comfortable she was around Kathryn as she admitted, “I’m not even sure why I said all of that; I just… wanted you to know what I am.”

“What you are,” Kathryn replied, slow and sincere as she studied T’Pel. “Is beautiful. Just as you are, for all that you are.” She paused, considering, before she added seriously, “And, for whatever it may be worth coming from me, you’re very dear to me, and I love you.”

T’Pel was deeply ashamed to admit that she cried at that. She didn’t know exactly how Kathryn meant that, how she loved her, and she wasn’t certain she cared. Someone _loved_ her!

Yet her jubilation was short-lived when Tuvok stepped into the kitchen, then stopped short, shocked as he announced, “You’re crying.”

“Yes.”

He came to her, and, unlike the night before, when he reached for her hand, she took it. She held onto him like he was her lifeline in an ocean of emotions that she was struggling to control. She held onto him because she wasn’t sure how else to explain, and it was easier to let their telepathy speak for her.

She’d baffled him again, she both saw and felt it as she watched her husband.

After a moment, he withdrew his hand, his expression almost too blank, his mind too empty of things for her to see. “You ought to go meditate.” He reached, impossibly gentle, to wipe the last of the offending tears from her cheeks. “It will help your disquiet.”

He was right, she knew, and trying to help in his own way. So, T’Pel stood from the table, going to do as he had suggested, and Tuvok slid into her chair once she’d vacated it.

* * *

The moment T’Pel was out of earshot, Tuvok’s gaze became hard where it rested upon Kathryn. “Lieutenant?” she asked cautiously. Here, in his own home and with his family – whenever they weren’t “on the clock” – she gave him the respect deserving of an equal. When someone she’d begrudging come to trust looked at her like that, she wasn’t even afraid to defer to him – again, if it wasn’t work-related, and something told her this wasn’t going to be.

“My wife told you,” Tuvok said, and it wasn’t a question. “Against my wishes and my counsel, she told you.”

Kathryn paused, unprepared for the accusation and excessive gravity in his tone. “Yes.” There was another pause, and then she hazarded, “I take it that’s a problem?”

He looked at her in mild surprise, asking, “She told you how she’s viewed in this town whenever she… steps too far out of line?”

“Yes. But, Tuvok, surely you understand that _I_ am not going to look at her – or your children, while we’re at it – that way, or treat them any sort of way because of their heritage.”

“I know that, yes, but I also know that the more people who know her story, the larger the chance for a more… widespread…” he was clearly, rather uncharacteristically, searching for the right words. It wasn’t like him to be so unsure. “Issue,” he finally said. “It could cause worse, more widespread issues that no one has felt the need to call into question yet.”

“She would get in trouble?” Kathryn asked in surprise.

He shook his head. “Not my wife, precisely. Our children, though…”

She squinted a little, trying to understand, trying to recall enough of Vulcan culture to realize what he meant. “You’re saying others might… not want human blood in their families,” she hazarded at length. “Because all of your children are nearing the age to be engaged, if they’re not betrothed already.”

Tuvok nodded. “If people are too… afraid of… T’Pel’s human side, and the parts of it that our children have inherited, they will break off the betrothals rather than allow their children or grandchildren to… feel such things.”

“I thought Vulcans didn’t _feel_ things like fear?” Kathryn pointed out, trying for a levity that she should’ve known he wouldn’t appreciate. He glowered at her, and she raised her hands in surrender, amending, “I’m sorry. I understand that this is important to you, and I won’t say anything to anyone. You have my word.”

“Thank you.” Tuvok relaxed for a moment, only for Kathryn to watch another thought cross his mind and make him tense again.

“Tuvok?”

“It is difficult for her,” he said quietly. “She feels things occasionally, in a way that, as you said, Vulcans ought not. She controls it very well with meditation and other exercises, but it’s still there. And…” there was a thread of something torn between worry and awe in his voice as he added, “She’s one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met.”

Kathryn smiled softly. “I would agree with that.”

“She doesn’t realize yet,” he said suddenly, watching her carefully. _Almost warily._

“Doesn’t realize what?”

His eyebrows rose as he replied simply, “That she loves you.”

Kathryn blinked. “What?” she asked, trying to understand once again instead of allowing her training to take over, her walls to fly up as the urge to negotiate with the unknown tried to kick in. Tuvok – and T’Pel – did not want, need, or appreciate her negotiation skills in this setting. Right now, they clearly needed understanding – and acceptance, wherever possible – before anything else.

Irritation flashed through Tuvok’s eyes, but he was quick to squash it before he repeated, “She loves you. In the corner of her mind where she holds her emotions.”

Not sure where to take her line of questioning, Kathryn asked hesitantly, “How do you know that?”

Tuvok gave her an unimpressed look, and didn’t answer, waiting for her to piece it together instead.

So, Kathryn called upon her diplomatic skills _just enough_ not to roll her eyes or let her own flash of temper show as she continued, “Yes, I know you’re telepathic, as is your bond with T’Pel, but…” just as easily, her hesitation returned. “Are you sure it’s _love_ that she feels?”

“I, of all people, wouldn’t say so if it wasn’t,” he pointed out.

Kathryn took a deep breath, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair and just tried to absorb that.

Tuvok watched her for a moment before he said, “In my opinion, the only thing that remains an unknown is how _you_ feel about _her_.”

“What about you? How do you… view this?” she asked, gesturing with her hands now.

Tuvok watched her gesticulating with a calm, nearly cool gaze, seeing it as the sign of her growing agitation that it was. “I will admit that I see taking another partner—”

_ Wait, was  _ that _what they were discussing here?! Really?_

“—As rather… excessive, and surplus to requirements, but I wish to do whatever it takes to make T’Pel… as happy as she can be. And if you make her happy, you…” his eyebrows knit a little more than normal. “Help her find a balance in who she is—”

_ How on earth did she do that?  _ Kathryn wondered, but didn’t interrupt him to ask.

“—Then I am willing to…” his eyebrows quirked again, uncomfortably. “Share her as she needs.”

_ Ah. That made at least a little more sense,  _ Kathryn thought. He wasn’t offering a triad, and he wasn’t declaring his own interest in her; he was being extraordinarily self-sacrificing for his wife’s sake. Speaking of which… “Have you discussed this with T’Pel?”

“No, I have not.”

“Well, someone has to. I doubt she’d appreciate you offering her as a partner to someone without her knowledge.”

“Likely not,” Tuvok allowed. “But I doubt just as much that she would start this conversation. She would… consider it a betrayal of our vows.”

“All the more reason for someone to start the conversation with her.”

“You’re the human in this scenario,” he pointed out, as if that would mean something to her.

“So?”

“’So,’ it would be easier for you to address a more complex relationship structure than it would be for me.”

“Regardless,” Kathryn countered, “You’re her husband.”

He considered her, making sure his words were the truth even as he said, “And you’re seriously considering my offer of becoming something more to her than what you are.”

“Not until I know where she stands on the offer!”

“Then you should talk to her about it,” he said with an air of finality that meant he thought he’d “won” their back-and-forth.

Kathryn planted her hands on her hips and huffed softly, but she let him walk away.


	4. Chapter 4

A few hours later, after she had completed her meditation, T’Pel found Kathryn in their sitting room, a mug of tea in her hands as she stared unseeingly out at the whirling sands beyond the window. Kathryn was startled out of her thoughts as T’Pel hazarded, “Tuvok said you wished to speak to me?”

Kathryn tried not to let it show that T’Pel had startled her – _really, a Star Fleet captain shouldn’t feel this flighty, no matter the circumstances_ \- as she replied in a flatly unimpressed tone, “Did he?”

She knew exactly what he wanted; she just wasn’t sure how to go about it – or how to feel about the fact that, now that the idea had snagged in her mind, she desperately wanted to explore it. _But what could a relationship with T’Pel possibly look like? And Tuvok was Kathryn’s partner_ and _T’Pel’s husband; he had to be considered here too, and she was even less certain where he would fit._

“Kathryn?” T’Pel’s hand rested atop hers on the teacup, and this time, Kathryn did visibly start as T’Pel sat down across from her once again. Her already dark eyes were black with concern now as she asked, “What is on your mind?”

Kathryn couldn’t quite bring herself to lie to the other woman, and that meant that there was only one other option. She stole her hand away and took a sip of her tea to buy herself a moment’s time before she said carefully, “I told you this morning that I love you.”

T’Pel nodded even as confusion flashed across her face. “You did.”

“And once you’d gone to meditate, Tuvok stayed behind, and the two of us talked.”

T’Pel’s face changed again, this time to the carefully neutral expression that was so characteristically Vulcan that, for a moment, Kathryn didn’t even believe it to be genuine. “About what?”

“You,” she said simply, seeing no point in trying to skirt that either. 

“What about me, Kathryn?” T’Pel asked, her voice almost too even as she began to have to pull information from the Star Fleet officer.

Here Kathryn faltered, not sure how she wanted to say what clearly came next. “You… and me… and what… Tuvok feels you may need from a… romantic relationship that you’re not currently getting from him.”

T’Pel took a second to sort through that, came to a conclusion regarding what she thought Kathryn meant, and sat up even straighter, asking on a nearly-silent sigh, “Whose idea was this? Yours or Tuvok’s?”

“Tuvok’s,” Kathryn admitted hesitantly.

T’Pel nodded sharply, stood, and swept out of the room with a graceful resolve that Kathryn only wished she could manage without sacrificing her femininity. T’Pel was then gone for so long that Kathryn had to fight against becoming twitchy, but something told her it would be best if she was easily locatable for a little while. Her instincts proved correct when T’Pel and Tuvok eventually walked back into the room, hand in hand before T’Pel sat Tuvok down beside Kathryn and then sat across from them.

“If we’re having this conversation, we’re having it all together,” T’Pel announced. “And I have a qualification that must be met before anything else is said.”

Tuvok sat stiffly beside Kathryn as she asked, “What ‘qualification?’”

“What my husband and I took so long discussing just now,” T’Pel informed her. “Is you. He was right to believe that I don’t want to… be involved with someone else without him. So, I have a proposition for you, Kathryn. That is to say,” a smile quirked at the edges of T’Pel’s mouth, an orneriness skittering across her gaze that so took Kathryn by surprise that she almost missed the Vulcan’s next words. “I am propositioning you. Come to our bedroom tonight, after the children have gone to bed. Please? I know you’re –” here T’Pel glanced at Tuvok to include him too. “Both – concerned about this idea, but I believe we can make it work if you’re both willing to give it a chance. For whatever it’s worth, I am.”

_ She shouldn’t. This was against regulations in so many ways. But… for T’Pel, beloved, beautiful T’Pel… and if Tuvok was willing…  _ She turned to him, waiting for his stiff nod – she couldn’t tell if he genuinely was uncomfortable, or if that was just _Tuvok_ right now – before she nodded as well.

T’Pel released a breath that made her shoulders relax more than Kathryn thought she’d ever seen before as she said, “Thank you.”

* * *

T’Pel, bless her, had made the whole adventure sound very awkward, and Tuvok’s silence during their conversation had left Kathryn half-frightened for him, but, as it turned out, there was one thing in the whole quadrant that Vulcans tackled with just as much passion as any human. 

Sex.

Being with T’Pel and Tuvok was unlike anything she’d ever felt. Absolutely, she’d had good sex before, but this was different; the telepathy that flowed between the three of them, that she felt as naturally and as surely as she felt their touch, made it so much _more_ , in a way. She was unashamed to admit that she’d cried to feel the shame that T’Pel lived with, that she’d been shocked to understand the depths of Tuvok’s buried rage, and that she’d laughed with the sheer joy the triad had felt in coming together.

She was pretty sure, after a day of honest, self-searching reflection on the subject, that she’d been enamored with them before their night together, but afterward, after seeing the real, whole people they were underneath their Vulcan exteriors, she loved them. Really loved them in the kind of way that she sensed meant they would always be entwined in her life in some form, even if – Gods forbid, very far down the road – only in her memories.

It was far easier – felt far more natural – to lie with them, to fall into the bed of this married couple, than it should’ve been, than she had ever even considered it might be. And, truth be told, she had considered it. Once she’d _done it_ , while she was lying with her arms around T’Pel while Tuvok held one of each of their hands, she couldn’t remember why they hadn’t done it before.

But sunrise came too soon for her liking, and there were children to be cared for, whose suspicions they couldn’t afford to raise – at least not any time soon – and they couldn’t remain in bed all day. Getting up, however, meant facing this convoluted version of a new reality that they’d created, and that meant that there had to be another conversation between the three of them. Whichever way this went, it was vital that they were all on the same page.


	5. Chapter 5

Once they were in an empty corner of the house, away from the children for a few minutes, Tuvok said almost exactly that. “Regardless of what we decide, it is vital that we all agree and find a respectable way to move forward.”

“And in which way is this relationship moving, if at all?” T’Pel asked, watching Kathryn for the answer as Kathryn, in turn, looked to Tuvok.

Tuvok, ever the pinnacle of logic to her mind, reminded Kathryn, “After last night, we all know how we feel about one another. The question is whether or not we’d like to do something about it.”

“Well,” Kathryn spoke aloud to Tuvok, letting them hear her thoughts as she worked through them. “You don’t love me.”

“The statement of the weekend, it seems.”

She smiled almost coyly. “But there is a part of you that is attracted to me.”

“Which makes sense, given the friction you two had to get over to work together,” T’Pel pointed out.

Kathryn snorted as Tuvok added, “Not _all_ feelings are discarded from a Vulcan’s mind.”

“So, lust is acceptable.”

“Precisely. But none of that is an answer to the question being posed.”

Kathryn was startled with herself when she realized what sprang to the edge of her tongue – _Gods, she could lose her command, or worse, over this!_ – but she said it anyway. “I want to try this, Tuvok.”

She had surprised him, too, she could tell, and he remained silent as he thought about it. T’Pel, on the other hand, declared, “There’s something special here, I think we’ve all known that for a while, and if… continuing to… strengthen our relationships with you, Kathryn, looks like… exploring, or changing, the direction those relationships go in, then I want to do that, too. I agree with you.” She gave Kathryn a careful smile. “I want to feel free to love you however I’d like to.” Glancing at Tuvok, she asked, “Is that selfish of me?”

Then he shook his head, saying with a steadiness Kathryn had a feeling was only little more than skin-deep when it came to his own thoughts, but was very real regarding T’Pel’s, “Not at all, my wife.”

Listening to him, Kathryn strained to hear any emotion in his tone, but the endearment given to T’Pel was only an endearment, there was no jealousy to it that she could audibly detect, and for that she was grateful.

“Then what do you say about it all for yourself?” T’Pel pressed him.

In answer, Tuvok reached for T’Pel’s hand, and Kathryn took that to mean that he wasn’t sure how to word precisely what he thought, so he was trying to convey it some other way. She waited patiently for a few seconds, watching the couple’s hands slide together in the manner of a Vulcan kiss, feeling a thread of something near unto amusement that they were suddenly so comfortable being that affectionate in front of her. Surely that had to mean something, and she didn’t think it was something unfavorable.

Then he reached out to her, “kissing” her in the same manner, and after the night she’d just spent with them, Kathryn was no longer surprised when she shivered, just as electrified as she would’ve been by a human’s kiss. This time, the simple gesture didn’t have the same telepathic tinge that it would’ve between him and T’Pel, but it still felt nice. He leaned in, kissing her carefully on the cheek. They all knew it was a gesture he wasn’t exactly comfortable with, but as reasonably seasoned Star Fleet officers, they _were_ both comfortable in the arena of different cultures. She smiled softly, cupping his cheek in her hand as he pulled away, both of them studying each other, and it struck her anew just how well they’d gotten to know each other, just how dear _he’d_ become to her alongside his wife, just how thoroughly she’d already forgotten how to go about things without him.

Her heart warmed as he leaned into her touch, murmuring, “I wish ‘to try this,’ too.”

And that was a start, a good start, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. She nodded, making herself take a step back from him as she propped her hands on her hips. “Alright. That’s good. Now that we’ve established that, we have to set up some ground rules here.”

T’Pel looked mildly startled by the sudden change in topic, but Tuvok rolled with it as if it was naturally the next comment. Maybe for him, like for Kathryn, it was. “Of course,” he replied, giving her the same look he would’ve on a ship’s bridge. Waiting for her to set her terms or hand out orders. 

She wanted to sigh, wanted to remind him that they were on equal terms here, but before she could, she realized this was his way of doing exactly what he did on the job – trusting her to come up with a plan to guide them both through scenarios where he might be uncomfortable… And it was fairly clear that he trusted her and T’Pel more than himself in a scenario like the one they were living out. The thought made her smile once again, even as she tried to become a little more business-like for this conversation. “There is, technically, no rule in Starfleet against _you and I_ being together,” Kathryn informed T’Pel. “So, most of this shouldn’t even have to apply to you. However,” she turned gravely toward Tuvok. “You and I need boundaries; we _must_ be careful.”

“Agreed.”

Kathryn searched his face – familiar now and becoming more and more precious to her – and wondered if he, too, was taking stock of how much this could cost them if it went wrong. She shoved her worries aside – _it wouldn’t go wrong_ – making sure her next words sounded like the suggestion they were as she said, “At work, we have to be at work; on missions, we have to be on missions – captain and lieutenant. Agreed?”

“Certainly,” Tuvok nodded sharply to underscore his willingness to go along with her idea.

“That being said,” Kathryn felt compelled to add. “When we’re here, and if you ever opt to come to my house…” she let herself smile at them. “That’s got nothing to do with Starfleet, and then we get to be just Tuvok, T’Pel, and Kathryn. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Tuvok repeated, T’Pel seconding him.

“Good. Then that’s that.”

“Maybe not,” T’Pel said suddenly. “I know it seems a strange thing to bring up right now, but you did have a point – even if, at some point down the road, you would wish to, you would never be able to marry us.”

Kathryn gave her a strange look, waiting to see where this would go. “Yes, I know.”

“Yet Tuvok and I are married to one another. It only seems fair to give you the same chance at a similar life.”

“What are you saying?” Kathryn asked as she felt her curiosity starting to weary and turn into aggravation.

“I’m saying…” T’Pel glanced at Tuvok, who only nodded encouragingly – apparently, they’d discussed this part, too, before coming back to her. “Be with us, Kathryn, love us, but don’t… feel that you must remain… only ours. If you find someone that you love enough to marry, we will accept that, because we want you to have that happiness if you wish to, even if, gods forbid, your partner chooses not to accept Tuvok and I.”

“Ah.” She understood what they meant, and that they meant well, but she didn’t see where it was applicable just now. “Well, that’s very kind of you, and I will keep it in mind, but for now I am quite happy to just enjoy one –” she gestured to Tuvok. “Or two – new relationships at a time.”


	6. Part Two: Chapter 6

_2370:_

For over four years, Kathryn very much enjoyed her relationship with Tuvok and T’Pel. She spent as much time as possible with them and their children on Vulcan, becoming the children’s “Aunt Kathryn,” much to her delight. They were smart children, she and their parents knew, and not entirely children at all, they had grown so much; they knew what Kathryn had by now long been to their parents, they just opted as a group not to comment on it, and gave her their approval in their own way.

Tuvok and T’Pel’s daughter, Asil, even invited Kathryn to her kolinahr after she’d found out that Kathryn had never been to one. The day of Asil’s kolinahr had been a surprisingly difficult day in Tuvok and T’Pel’s household, though. T’Pel had walked a strange line between pride in her daughter, shame in herself, and worry over Assan – the third of the four children, and the only one who, like his mother, had never achieved kolinahr at all – that Kathryn had seen a few too many times for her liking over the years. She had learned with time, though, that the best thing to do for T’Pel was to wait, and hold her later, once whatever had caused the barely-perceptible storm in her eyes was passed, and coax her into talking through it. That’s what Kathryn had done that night, putting T’Pel between herself and Tuvok on the bed that the three of them frequently shared, Tuvok and Kathryn kissing her and showering her with compliments until she curled around Kathryn and talked through the infrequent tears that she would allow herself. And, in the light of the following morning, just like every other time before, T’Pel had been fine, and everything had gone back to the happier norm.

It was a good life, and Kathryn was content with it.

Still, not long after that, it managed to get even better. Five years into her relationship with Tuvok and T’Pel, Kathryn met Mark Johnson.

It was strange at first, with a new romantic interest, as it always was. She’d gone on no more than a dozen dates since taking up with T’Pel and Tuvok, but Mark was interesting, and kind, and when he’d asked her if they could perhaps walk their dogs together one evening – without even the pressure of sitting through a whole dinner or something like it – she hadn’t seen the harm. Through that and every other time they met afterward, he’d very nearly snuck up on her, carving out a place for himself in her life that she’d barely even considered she might want someone to have.

When she’d sat him down in her living room and told him about her relationship with T’Pel – dancing a thin, unspoken line around the idea of her relationship with Tuvok – he’d been understanding and accepting where Kathryn had genuinely expected him to walk away from her. He had no desire to meet these people who were such an integral part of a different side of her life, no, but he wasn’t going to stand in her way of being with them, and that was all there was to that conversation.

Almost without meaning to, she had taken T’Pel and Tuvok up on that clause in their relationship that she’d never expected to use – finding someone of her own outside of them – but the married couple truly, blessedly was okay with it, and Kathryn loved them all the more for it.

In what seemed like no time at all, Kathryn could feel the proposal coming, and it terrified her as much as it excited her. However, when he did propose, she couldn’t imagine saying anything besides “yes.”

And so, with a fiancé at her side, and a whole family of beloved Vulcans surrounding her, Kathryn was pretty sure her life became genuinely perfect.

* * *

Until Tuvok became sick while they were at an outpost orbiting his home planet, and he became afraid that his illness nearly exposed the closely held secret of their relationship.

Kathryn looked at him sharply as soon as the turbolift doors closed behind them, leaving the two of them alone for the first time all day. “You are unwell.” It wasn’t a question. Before he could object to her statement, she listed rapidly, “You’re sweating, trembling, and breathing _at least_ a little erratically. You should report to the medic; you look like you’re going to pass out!”

“Quite the opposite, actually.” Tuvok gripped the railing, pressing his back against the cool metal of the lift as he stayed as far away from her as he could get. “I’m experiencing…” he began to blink rapidly, before snapping, quiet but fierce, “Will you _back up._ ”

Kathryn narrowed her eyes at him, surprised at the highly uncharacteristic display of emotion, but she obligingly took a step back, until she, too, felt the side of the turbolift at her back. “Tuvok?”

He faltered before saying on a strained breath, “I don’t want you to catch this.”

“And what precisely is ‘this?’” Kathryn asked, sensing at least the beginnings of a lie.

“The…” he was faltering again, though if it was because he was trying to catch his breath or trying to come up with an acceptable illness, she had no idea. “Tarkalean flu.”

“Computer, halt turbolift,” Kathryn snapped before giving her partner another look over, this time purposefully with a scientist’s eye. She pointed at him accusingly, deciding, “I think you’re lying to your superior officer.”

He drew in a silent, shaky breath, saying, “If you will let me off of this turbolift, I will return to my quarters, request time off from the appropriate superiors, and return to Vulcan. They have medicine there that will heal me easily.”

“What Vulcan has,” Kathryn returned pointedly. “Is _T’Pel._ This has nothing to do with medicine, does it?”

Tuvok met her eyes for the first time in hours – she suddenly realized he’d been avoiding her all day as best he could while they were working together – and she was stunned to see panic in his eyes as he hissed, “I need to get away from you!”

_Because right now, in his serotonin-imbalanced mind, she represented the same thing that T’Pel did._

She drew in a breath, ordering, “Computer, resume turbolift.”

The moment the doors began to open on the floor where their guest quarters were, Tuvok slipped out of the turbolift, and walked steadily to his quarters. Kathryn watched him go before she turned into her own rooms. If she was right, and she really thought she was, if he could move as steadily as he still was, then the situation was nowhere near critical yet. She comforted herself with that thought as she ate her dinner.

Halfway through her solitary meal, someone buzzed at her door.

“Come in,” she called.

The door slid open, and Tuvok poked his head into her quarters, but did not enter. Sensing his reluctance, Kathryn didn’t ask him to, rising from the table to go to him instead.

“Yes?” she asked, remaining well out of his arms’ reach, just in case.

“I’ve received a week off-duty, starting tomorrow,” he informed her. “With permission to request more time if it’s needed. You’ve been reassigned to escort me back to Vulcan, given my illness and your scientific expertise, should my illness worsen, and your skills be needed.”

The first part of that announcement she’d expected, the second half, thinly veiled garbage of an excuse that it was, came as a surprise. In any case, she remained the perfect picture of poise and captaincy as she replied, “Understood.”

“Good night, Captain Janeway,” he said then, trying to act as if the pleasantry hadn’t come from between clenched teeth.

“Good night, Tuvok,” she replied fondly. As he turned to go, she impulsively said on a swell of pity, “And Tuvok?”

He swallowed, turning back to her. “Yes, captain?”

“Let me know if you need anything?” _If he needed her to slip into his room, she would risk it this time, she meant._

He shook his head minutely, the action conveying more than his words did as he said, “I will be fine until tomorrow, but thank you.”

This time when he took his leave, she let him go.


	7. Chapter 7

They were on a shuttle headed back to Vulcan by 0600 the next morning, with Kathryn in the pilot’s seat, and Tuvok having retreated as far to the back of the spacecraft as he could manage. When they reached Tuvok and T’Pel’s home, Tuvok moved as quickly as could be called proper to get inside, and T’Pel met him all but just inside the door as soon as the three of them were shut in together. T’Pel was also covered in a sheen of sweat, her limbs shaky and breathing irregular – though that could be attributed to the breathless way her husband was kissing her “hello” – Kathryn catalogued with the scientist’s eye that she’d been asked to use, but altogether, T’Pel looked to be in better shape than Tuvok.

Still, Kathryn decided she had to have been right. This had to be the little-understood Vulcan pon farr. 

_ Tarkalean flu her eye.  _

She smiled to herself, shoving aside the nosy, scientist side of her mind as she said while fully expecting to be ignored, “I am going to leave you two to sort this out. I’ll see you both in a week.”

She backed towards the door as T’Pel moved from kissing Tuvok’s lips to his neck instead. “Wait,” Tuvok said breathlessly, reaching for her with one hand as he kept the other wrapped firmly around his wife. “Please.” 

The request went largely unarticulated, but Kathryn got the feeling it was the best she was going to get. She knew these two well, knew when they were about to tumble over a precipice and into a place that had no use for words.

Her smile widened as she took his hand and let him pull her into his and T’Pel’s arms.

* * *

_ 2371: _

As they came into a new year, Kathryn found herself marveling at how many times she’d recently stopped to think that her life couldn’t get any better. She was engaged to be married to a marvelous man, and still, buoyed by their pon farr experience, her relationship with Tuvok and T’Pel had never been better either. She had just received a commission to a new captaincy of a brand-new starship, _Voyager_. As the icing on the cake, her dog was even expecting puppies! It was like something out of a storybook, and even though she’d said so more than once in the past year, she couldn’t imagine being happier.

_ Not even Tuvok’s impending three-month absence from her thanks to an undercover mission could dull her spirits _ , she decided as the three of them sat around the dining table over breakfast. The children had already eaten, then gone off to school after telling the triad – but particularly their father – goodbye, and now the adults were discussing the mission that Tuvok was due to report for in a little over an hour.

“You don’t have to worry,” Kathryn informed T’Pel, pinpointing an emotion she knew the other woman felt but wouldn’t admit to. 

“Three months isn’t that long for a space mission, you know that,” Tuvok added.

“You’re right,” T’Pel agreed, but she was still holding Tuvok’s hand where they sat.

Kathryn took her other hand, then Tuvok’s, too, just for fun, reminding them all, “As soon as he has the information we need, my crew and I will board the Maquis ship, bring the rebels in, and then I will gladly bring him back here to you.”

“And you will stay as well,” T’Pel reminded her.

“Yes, sir,” Kathryn agreed with an adoring smile.

“I know how this all works,” T’Pel said kindly. “I’ve been married to a Starfleet officer longer than you’ve been alive, Kathryn.”

“Then don’t… be concerned, my wife.” Tuvok stood from the table, giving T’Pel the Vulcan equivalent of a kiss, their fingers sliding together before he stepped away. “You will have time with Kathryn while I am away, and then I will be back, and you will be ready for me to return to space before you know it.”

T’Pel squeezed his hand once, replying, “Never,” before she released him.

“Now, I must go,” he said, and Kathryn and T’Pel walked him to the door.

“I will see you soon,” he promised T’Pel, giving her the same acceptably Vulcan goodbye that he’d given his children.

“I look forward to it,” she replied with a weary, adoring smile.

“And I will see you at headquarters before I leave,” he said, turning to Kathryn.

She nodded, accepting the equally Vulcan kiss that he’d given T’Pel before he slipped out the door. Turning to T’Pel, she took the other woman’s hand, promising cheerfully, “I know there’s always a little worry when one of us goes undercover like this, but he’s genuinely one of the best officers I know, and he will be fine. All three of us will be back together again before you know it.”

T’Pel leaned into her, smiling softly – at least with her eyes if not her expression – and taking the gentle comfort that Kathryn was offering. “I know.”

* * *

Standing in T’Pel’s kitchen Kathryn almost hated to admit it, but when the time came to go retrieve Tuvok, she was excited to go. She adored _Voyager_ , and she adored the man she was going to retrieve. She did not adore the Maquis she would be bringing back to Starfleet as well, but for a chance to be back in space, making their galaxy a safer place, she was glad to head up their transport to a cell.

“I’ll see you all soon, alright?” Kathryn said, her hand on T’Pel’s shoulder while she looked at the four children.

Solik and Asil nodded easily, Sek offered “of course,” and Assan bid her “stay safe, Aunt Kathryn,” before T’Pel and Kathryn walked to the front door and out of sight of the children.

“Do stay safe, my love,” T’Pel ordered her gently. “And bring Tuvok home in one piece and scare the Maquis straight for the fun of it while you’re at it.”

Kathryn laughed at T’Pel’s strange, rare joke – something that showed just how much she was attempting not to worry – but nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said the same adoring way she had when Tuvok had left them months earlier. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.” 

T’Pel leaned in for a kiss, and Kathryn pulled her close with an arm around her waist, relishing the moment of sheer, very physical affection, while keeping her free hand on the doorknob. If she didn’t, she’d get caught in the moment and distracted, and then be late boarding _Voyager_ , and that _would not_ do. 

“I’ve got to go,” she reminded them both, taking a step back from T’Pel. Disappointment flashed through T’Pel’s eyes, and to banish it, Kathryn added with a promisingly lascivious look, “If I don’t, Tuvok and I can’t get back, and then we won’t be able to celebrate our return.”

T’Pel bit back a smile as she said, “Goodbye, then.”

Kathryn winked at her before opening the front door and stepping outside. “Goodbye, T’Pel.”


	8. Part Three: Chapter 8

_2374:_

Over the next month, all of Starfleet’s – and Kathryn’s – plans for the straightforward mission went spectacularly to hell, and nothing got easier from there. It was a small mercy, Kathryn supposed, thinking about it later, that she got so very swept up in her work, in her captaincy, that she didn’t consciously realize what was happening to her romantic entanglements until it had all already happened.

Mark Johnson had gotten married; he told her so himself in one of two letters that she received from the Alpha Quadrant, and though it hurt to think about, it didn’t really come as a surprise to her. So, he was gone from her life officially now, even though she really knew he’d been gone for longer than she was willing to admit.

When it came down to it, however, it was the second letter that _really_ got to her, poked around her insides and left them feeling gnarled and painful where she didn’t feel outright hollow. T’Pel and the twins, Solik and Assan, had written her a letter, and it made her think of things she hadn’t truly considered in four years. It wasn’t so much the more mundane contents of the letter – _“Sek is married, you’re a great aunt, and both of the twins are looking into joining Starfleet Academy”_ – that bothered her as much as it was the simple postscript at the bottom, written by T’Pel – after the twins had left her side, Kathryn imagined.

_“I miss you, our Kathryn, and I love you.”_

It made her realize how completely this voyage had changed her relationship with Tuvok -and, by that, didn’t it have to change her relationship with T’Pel? To think about it all _hurt_ in a way that made her sick to her stomach.

She called Commander Tuvok into her ready room before she could think better of it.

He gave her his usual blandly curious look as he stepped in, asking, “You wanted to see me, captain?”

Her eyes flickered to the door, waiting for it to close before she held up the PADD containing the letter she’d gotten from his family, her own expression purposefully as blank as his. He took the PADD, skimming the letter, and she saw him draw in a silent breath of surprise when he realized what he was reading.

She could see him struggle not to stammer as he handed the letter back to her. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me this.”

Kathryn scoffed quietly before she could help herself, moving onto her feet and starting to pace just for something to do. It wasn’t until she put a hand over her mouth, thinking, that she realized she was trembling. “Mark Johnson,” she said suddenly.

“I’m sorry?”

Tuvok was studying her now, which meant she was worrying him, which meant she needed to calm down, so she took a deep breath, moving her hand away from her face before she said tiredly, “I got a letter from Mark Johnson as well, telling me that he had married a lovely coworker and found homes for my dog’s puppies. On earth it’s what we would call a ‘Dear John’ letter, and I expected it.” She stopped her pacing to point at the PADD from T’Pel where it set on her desk, and when she spoke, she was horrified to realize she was almost choking on unshed tears. This was not – had never been, no matter the circumstances – how she and Tuvok behaved towards one another. But she continued anyway, “I did not expect that. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I didn’t.”

Silence hung between them for a moment, neither one of them sure what to say while she rolled her eyes towards the ceiling to keep her tears at bay. “When did we end ‘us,’ Tuvok?” she asked quietly.

“I—” Now Tuvok really did stumble over his words, no better at this than she was, and currently not much worse either. “I don’t know,” he admitted carefully, knowing full well what she was talking about even though they hadn’t addressed it in four years. _Four years!_

“But we did, didn’t we?”

His mouth twisted strangely, like he was trying to find something, anything, to say, but in the end, he was only silent for a long, agonizing minute before he nodded.

She nodded too, firm and businesslike, because if she was anything else, she might just start to crumble in the face of the day that this was shaping up to be.

He saw her pain, she knew he did, but he was also apparently emboldened by her agreement as he said thoughtfully, “I don’t think that there is a way for us to… bridge that gap while we’re still aboard _Voyager_.”

“So, we’re over.” It was a flat statement, an agreement that they were coming to, so devoid of emotion that it would’ve made any Vulcan proud. “Apparently, we have been for years without even noticing. Is that correct?”

He nodded again, and for the first time in a long time, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking when she looked at him. When she realized it was because of the tears clouding her eyes, she turned her back to him before he could see them start to fall.

“Dismissed, Mr. Tuvok.”

And he did take a step – in the wrong direction, towards her instead of the door. In the light reflecting off the window, she could see the lines of concern in his face now. “Captain.” Her shoulders stiffened as he glanced towards the door, old habits and fears rising before he took another step towards her, hand outstretched. “Kathryn.”

“ _Dismissed_ , Mr. Tuvok,” she repeated firmly.

He froze at her tone, swallowing a sigh before he turned and left her alone to her thoughts and tears. Clenching her jaw, she returned to her desk, slipping the letter from T’Pel and the twins into a bottom drawer of her desk before she focused on some report that she couldn’t really care about right now. Stubbornly, she didn’t let a single tear fall.


	9. Chapter 9

_2377:_

Kathryn was half-awake and stumbling out of bed before she’d even realized what she was doing or what had woken her in the first place. The chime was buzzing at her door, she noted after a second.

_At two in the morning?_

She grabbed her robe, trying to sort her hair out into some sort of decent state as she headed into her sitting room and called, “Come in?”

She was in no way prepared for the sight that met her on the other side of her opening door: Tuvok was leaning against the doorjamb, nearly doubled over as if he couldn’t quite hold himself upright and completely covered in sweat.

Kathryn rushed forward, instantly wide awake as she took his arm and helped him into her rooms. He was feverish, heat coming off him in alarming waves as she leveraged him onto her couch before crouching down to get a better look at him as she asked, “What’s the matter?” _He wasn’t focusing properly on her._ She tapped his cheek, trying to get his attention as she asked, “Tuvok? We have to get you to sickbay.”

She moved to tap her comm badge, only to realize she’d left it on her nightstand as Tuvok shook his head. “He can’t help,” Tuvok announced through gritted teeth. “Nothing’s helping!”

There was a dangerous edge of rage in his voice, something Kathryn knew from past experiences that her chief of security carried just beneath the surface of his Vulcan exterior. _But for it to be coming out verbally like it was now…_ “Your pon farr,” she murmured as it hit her. _How dense of her not to have understood before now!_ “Oh, Tuvok,” she took his hand, squeezed it until he looked at her. “I thought you told Lieutenant Paris that the holodeck did the t—”

“I lied,” Tuvok groaned. “I wanted it to have worked, but it only prolonged it, and—” Tuvok swallowed roughly, unsure how to proceed.

That was when it hit her, why he was here. Why he had made what had to have been a difficult, painful trek to her quarters in the middle of the night. “Tuvok,” she asked him steadily. “How can I help you? What do you need me to do?”

Tuvok looked at her, finally focusing on her face, but the words were frozen in his throat. She was shocked, however, to realize that there were tears glistening in his eyes. _Desperation, probably, or the inexplicable sadness that followed any of them whenever they thought too much of home, and of the people who weren’t here with them._

 _T’Pel._ Her presence, and absence, hung like a palpable thing between Kathryn and Tuvok now, and it was the thought of that old love that gave Kathryn the push she needed to squeeze his hand again, murmuring, “Please, Tuvok, tell me what you need.”

“I am afraid,” he admitted between shallow gasps for air.

“Of what?” she asked at the unexpected announcement.

“Last time…” he answered falteringly. “When you were… there for this…” he took a deep breath. “T’Pel was there… as a sort of buffer. I – we – did not mate with you. We did not… want to… trap you to us like that. Here – now – without her here… I cannot promise that I will not—”

“Never mind that, Tuvok,” Kathryn said impulsively, surprised by how firm the order came out. “I can’t have you dying on me over this, no matter what. So, you tell me what you need from me, and I will do it, do you understand?”

He looked at her for a long moment, a wrecked, ill man without his wife or the comfort of going through this process in his home, and it made Kathryn want to cry. She didn’t, though, and his voice came out as little more than a whine as he finally requested, “Kathryn. Help me. Please. I… _need you_.”

That was all she needed to hear.

“Come here,” she whispered, helping him onto his feet, and putting one of his arms around her shoulders as they moved slowly together towards her bedroom.

He was so terribly weak, and she was the worst sort of friend and captain for not having noticed how bad he’d gotten. She laid him on his back on her bed, divesting him of his shoes, then herself of her robe, before she sat down beside him and helped him out of the gray tank he was wearing.

She leaned in and kissed him where he lay, not at all startled when he returned the kiss with desperation, but caught off-guard when, after he’d drawn in a breath, he murmured against her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” she said gently, sparing a thought – traitorous as it felt – for the will-they-won’t-they relationship that she had with Chakotay, the looks she and Seven of Nine traded that were becoming increasingly more intense and lingering. _How sorry ought she to be?_

“But I am,” Tuvok insisted, and some piece of Kathryn’s armor really did buckle as she noticed that his tears were snaking in warm trails down her skin.

Despite her thoughts, her reply had nothing to do with Chakotay or Seven as she answered brokenly, “So am I.”

* * *

He came to her every night for a week, applying far more of a schedule to a pon farr than she thought was probably healthy, but in the end, it was enough. He recovered, and in some part of Kathryn, she decided that was all she cared about – that her friend was well and strong, and able to continue once again. And, in any case, that was very, very near the truth, if it wasn’t the truth entirely.

Because at the end of it all, as she and Tuvok lay in bed together the final night, their bodies cooling as they stayed in each other’s arms and he told her that he didn’t think he would be returning the next night… they cried together. He had the excuse from his pon farr that his emotions weren’t once again entirely under his control just yet; Kathryn didn’t, but it didn’t stop her from crying with him.

 _Just this once_. They both knew it without it having to be said, but it was enough, _just this once_.

“I miss them,” Tuvok breathed into her hair, a confession made so quietly she almost didn’t hear it.

The familiar pain wrenched in her heart – _her fault, her responsibility, she had to get her crew home to their families no matter what._

_“Do stay safe, my love. And bring Tuvok home in one piece and scare the Maquis straight for the fun of it while you’re at it.”_

_“I’ll do my best.”_

_“I know you will.”_

For one frozen minute of time, before he had to get up and go back to his own quarters lest he be discovered, Kathryn let herself cling to her old friend a little tighter, very aware that something like this might never happen again between them as she admitted, “I do too.”


End file.
